friends. Not his mother. Not Claire’s family.
Not even Claire.
Claire was still holding the card. She was looking at it. Then she looked up at Max. Something on her face had changed.
“Max,” she said quietly. “Did you say that? To your daughter? About cookies?”
“It was a joke, babe.”
“Did you say she’d get chubby? Like her mom?”
Max didn’t answer.
Claire looked down at the card again. At the words. Eighteen months ago, you asked a woman…
She looked at me.
For the first time ever, Claire Dawson looked at me. Not past me. At me.
I don’t know what she was thinking. I’ll never know.
But I think, maybe, she was doing the math. Thinking about her own body, someday. After babies. After years. After the gym got harder and the mornings got earlier.
Thinking about what Max might say to her, then.
Claire handed
